Discussing the Undiscussable

Since his 1990 landmark book Overcoming Organizational Defenses, Chris Argyris has extensively researched and written about how well-meaning, smart people create vicious cycles of defensive behavior to protect themselves from embarrassment and threat. In Discussing the Undiscussable, Bill Noonan enlivens the scholarly work of Chris Argyris through the use of reflective exercises and easy-to-read chapters that illuminate the basic human experience endemic to the creation of defensive routines. This book offers hope for altering organizational defensive routines by leveraging the greatest opportunity for change--the way we think and act.

Discussing the Undiscussable provides a set of practical "how to do" exercises for detecting, surfacing, and discussing organizational defensive routines in a safe and productive way. The combination of text, business fable, and interactive and reflective exercises is versatile in its application to both individuals and groups. The companion DVD contains video vignettes of the book's business fable where the actors model both defensive routines and virtuous cycles of behavior. Readers will instantly recognize what has long been going on in the workplace, and will be able to develop the skills to talk about it productively.

Praise for Discussing the Undiscussable

"I highly recommend this book to leaders, consultants, and anyone else who wants to help teams and organizations learn to address their most challenging issues. Bill Noonan's insights, stories, and practical methods make this an important book to read."
--Roger Schwarz, author, The Skilled Facilitator, and coauthor, The Skilled Facilitator Fieldbook

"Noonan makes Chris Argyris's pathbreaking work on organizational defensive routines accessible, and even entertaining."
--Bruce Patton, coauthor, Getting to YES and Difficult Conversations

"Whether at work or home we can use Bill Noonan's work to improve our lives and those of the people we interact with."
--Robb E. Van Cleave, treasurer, International Board of Directors, Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM)

"In a world of increasing complexity where multiple perspectives are required for addressing work issues, the ability to guide groups in having honest discussions where both intuition and data are given full and fair consideration is more and more important."
--Ralph Biggadike, professor, management division, Columbia Business School

The expanding application of Concept Mapping includes its role in knowledge elicitation, institutional memory preservation, and ideation. With the advent of the CmapTools knowledge modeling software kit, Concept Mapping is being applied with increased frequency and success to address a variety of problems in the workplace. Supported by business application case studies, Applied Concept Mapping: Capturing, Analyzing, and Organizing Knowledge offers an accessible introduction to the theory, methods, and application of Concept Mapping in business and government. The case studies illustrate applications across a range of industries--including engineering, product development, defense, and healthcare. The authors provide access to a free download of CmapTools, courtesy of the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, to enable readers to create and share their own Concept Maps. Offering examples from the United States, Canada, Australia, Spain, Brazil, Scotland, and The Netherlands, they highlight a global perspective of this dynamic tool. The text is organized into three sections: 1. Practitioners' Views--supplies narratives, guidance, and reviews of applications from career Concept Mappers 2. Recent Case Studies and Results--presents in-depth examinations of specific applications and their results 3. Pushing the Boundaries--explores what's possible and where the boundary conditions lie Applied Concept Mapping facilitates the fundamental understanding needed to harness the power of Concept Mapping to develop viable solutions to a virtually unlimited number of real-world problems.

There is recurrent public concern with enhancing the quality of professional performance. What is the con-temporary understanding of professionalism? Are the needs of professionals in various fields being met in today's world, as what is commonly called "continuing professional development" has become of a sizable industry? Many books treat the professions as a homo-geneous group and view them from an external stand-point. In Professional Practices Tony Becher investigates the differences as well as the similarities between and within professional groupings, and presents the perspec-tives of insiders. One particular theme concerns the main patterns of change in professional careers and the spe-cific problems faced by women professionals in a largely male-dominated environment. Brilliantly written, the book focuses on six professions-medicine, pharmacy, law, accountancy, architecture, and slructural engineering. The material is based on 190 interviews with a variety of members of the six professions. Becher's book offers original and sensitive insight into the working Ives of practitioners and an understanding of the ideas and values they embrace. He a'gjes that their high sense of commitment stems from a concern to enhance their individual reputations and to maintain their collective professional status. Becher highlights re variety of activities in which these professionals are engaged and the reasons for their reponses to social and political pressures from outside their fields. Above all, he seeks to demystify professionalism and to show that professional people share with others a wide range of universal human feelings and concerns. A postscript raises the issue of why -Diversities are little involved with continuing education in the professions. Practicing professionals will benefit from this insight into how people in their own and other professions cope with similar problems. Becher's volume will be particularly ap-pealing to educationists, policymakers, and social scientists interested in the subject of professionalism, those involved in the provision of initial and mid-career change for the orofessions, and those with a lay interest in the topic.

Research shows you have a 50% chance of hiring the right employee... and a 50% chance of hiring the wrong one. It's a?toss up, but it doesn't have to be. After years of scientific research and first-hand interview experience with thousands of candidates, author Chaka Booker has created a system that helps employers consistently make great hires. Mastering the Hire provides 12 proven strategies that have been used to accurately identify the right talent 90% of the time. Whether hiring manager, business owner, CEO, search consultant, team manager, team member, novice or expert interviewer, Chaka's method is for anyone who wants to beat the hiring odds. ?In this book, you will learn: How to manage?your intuition: when to trust it and when to put it aside. Question design principles: structuring questions so candidates are influenced to tell the truth The power of pressure: when to apply or release pressure and how to control the hidden internal pressure that leads to poor decisions. To identify key competencies: the four competencies you must always interview for and techniques to accurately assess them. Tools for removing?bias: tomorrow's talent doesn't fit yesterday's mold and is often overlooked. Understanding and removing bias will give you a competitive advantage. To?reimagine the hiring process: resume reviews, phone interviews, and in-person interviews will get a much-needed revamp with innovative twists on each. The interview is the cornerstone of the hiring process, yet science has shown the odds aren't in your favor. Mastering the Hire gives you strategies that will dramatically improve the one decision that determines everything you can accomplish--who you hire.

People at Work is noted sociologist Marjorie L. DeVault's groundbreaking collection of original essays on the complexities of the modern-day workplace. By focusing on the lived experiences of the worker, not as an automaton on an assembly line, but as an embodied human of flesh and bone, these essays offer important insight on the realities of the workplace, and their effects on life at home and in communities. With contributions from some of today's top scholars, each essay is a detailed case study of a different aspect of the working world.

Compelling, lively, and sometimes chilling, the contributors address issues from disability rights to immigrant labor, welfare reforms to budget cuts, competition to personal motivations. Each one valuable on its own, the essays in People at Work combine to illuminate the hurdles that workers of all backgrounds struggle with and, more broadly, the impact of change on workers' lives in the new, increasingly global, economy.

Gaining a thorough understanding of today's complex workplace is of vital importance to both business professionals and academics-not only because it leads to a deeper understanding of individual motivation in the work context, but also because it reveals ways in which work practices can be improved. This requirement for both understanding and action has become especially pressing in the area of "learning in organizations" as businesses have become ever more "knowledge-based." There is now an urgent need to comprehend how people and organizations learn, and then to store and transfer the resulting new knowledge to facilitate the design of work environments and practices. Learning from Work directly addresses this growing workplace need by examining how people communicate and learn in one of the most complex of industry structures: the automobile industry. It is the very nature of this industry's complexity that makes this study so valuable. The combination of global scale, plus the nature of the relationships between the manufacturers and the dealerships (the dealerships are independent businesses that are only loosely coupled to the manufacturers) make the barriers to communication and learning quite high, and make the solutions to overcoming them applicable in many different work environments. Anne Beamish suggests that the only way is to increase learning and improve collaboration and communication in complex organizations is to apply design thinking. This is the only comprehensive method, she claims, that can unleash the kind of innovative and effective solutions required to overcome the inherent structural, procedural, and political barriers.

"This book is a contemporary classic--a shrewd and spirited guide to protecting ourselves from the jerks, bullies, tyrants, and trolls who seek to demean. We desperately need this antidote to the a-holes in our midst."--Daniel H. Pink, best-selling author of To Sell Is Human and Drive How to avoid, outwit, and disarm assholes, from the author of the classic The No Asshole Rule As entertaining as it is useful, The Asshole Survival Guide delivers a cogent and methodical game plan for anybody who feels plagued by assholes. Sutton starts with diagnosis--what kind of asshole problem, exactly, are you dealing with? From there, he provides field-tested, evidence-based, and often surprising strategies for dealing with assholes--avoiding them, outwitting them, disarming them, sending them packing, and developing protective psychological armor. Sutton even teaches readers how to look inward to stifle their own inner jackass. Ultimately, this survival guide is about developing an outlook and personal plan that will help you preserve the sanity in your work life, and rescue all those perfectly good days from being ruined by some jerk. "Thought-provoking and often hilarious . . . An indispensable resource."--Gretchen Rubin, best-selling author of The Happiness Project and Better Than Before "At last . . . clear steps for rejecting, deflecting, and deflating the jerks who blight our lives . . . Useful, evidence-based, and fun to read."--Robert Cialdini, best-selling author of Influence and Pre-Suasion

Leadership successes and failures are in the media every day. We are in a global political and financial crisis which is changing how we think about our lives and our futures. The authors present a leadership model for the future which creates the right conditions for people to thrive, individually and collectively, and achieve significant goals.

In this book Michael P. Leiter and Christina Maslach, the leading experts on job burnout prevention and authors of the landmark book "The Truth About Burnout," outline their revolutionary new program for helping everyone in the workplace overcome everyday stress and pressures and achieve their career goals. "Banishing Burnout" includes the authors' unique and highly effective Work Life self-assessment test and a customized plan for action that will help transform the individual's relationship with work and overcome job burnout. The authors outline their proven action plan, which shows how to establish core values, set a personal direction, engage other people, initiate a realistic plan of action, make an impact, and achieve career goals. The book is filled with illustrative case examples from a wide variety of organizations, including corporations, health care institutions, universities, and nonprofit organizations. Each case demonstrates how the use of the Work Life self-survey and the individualized action plan can result in dramatic changes in the daily workplace experience and advance career development.

Do you need to deliver an effective service to challenging and unreasonable internal or external clients? Do you worry that you'll lose business or take a reputational hit if you don't do so well enough? This book introduces a valuable set of tools through which to build, maintain and manage your client-facing relationships.

Presents research in Employee-Driven Innovation, an emergent field of study that meets the demand for exploiting new innovative potentials in organizations. There is a growing interest in creating new knowledge in innovation, emphasizing human resources and social processes. The authors intend to take the global lead in research on these areas.

A comprehensive collection by Professor Cary Cooper and his colleagues in the field of workplace stress and wellbeing, which draws on research in a number of areas including stress-strain relationships, sources of workplace stress and stressful occupations. Volume 1 of 2.

Remote working is the new reality, and transactional work - provided by freelancers, contract employees or consultants - has increased exponentially. It is forecast that as much as half the labor force will be working independently and virtually by 2020. Most organizations are still grappling with how to effectively manage their virtual staff and how to effectively support and motivate them - an increasingly urgent task as more Millennials join the workforce, bringing changed attitudes to work satisfaction. This book, the fruit of the author's three decades of experience planning and implementing remote working environments, provides expert guidance for anyone planning a shift to remote working, managing teams of teleworkers, or themselves working in a virtual team. The author's key message is that, in an environment where there is no face to face and informal contact, virtual working requires the creation of a matrix of distributed teams, and that their success depends on the right preparation, changing corporate culture and rewards, and implementing appropriate strategies at the management level to create team cohesion and motivate team members. Working Virtually is for the executive leading changes in an enterprise that is preparing for virtual work or seeking to improve current performance. It offers tools to assess readiness, advice on creating appropriate reward policies, and strategies to adapt performance management processes to be more team-driven and technology leveraged. Working Virtually is written to and for the virtual leader who wants to establish high performing virtual teams. It provides an understanding of the roles and responsibilities of managing a virtual team, offering a wealth of advice on creating the conditions for collaboration, motivating team members, and identifying and defusing problems. Working Virtually is for the professional who works remotely from home, on the road, or in an office with remote colleagues. It is for anyone who wants to succeed in this new work environment by developing skills and networks to create a sustained and satisfying career path. With this new edition providing a 360 Degrees view of the roles and objectives of all stakeholders in the virtual workspace, this book uniquely provides readers with a rounded picture of the policies, processes, work habits, and commitments needed to achieve the shared goal of high performance remote teams.

Remote working is the new reality, and transactional work - provided by freelancers, contract employees or consultants - has increased exponentially. It is forecast that as much as half the labor force will be working independently and virtually by 2020. Most organizations are still grappling with how to effectively manage their virtual staff and how to effectively support and motivate them - an increasingly urgent task as more Millennials join the workforce, bringing changed attitudes to work satisfaction. This book, the fruit of the author's three decades of experience planning and implementing remote working environments, provides expert guidance for anyone planning a shift to remote working, managing teams of teleworkers, or themselves working in a virtual team. The author's key message is that, in an environment where there is no face to face and informal contact, virtual working requires the creation of a matrix of distributed teams, and that their success depends on the right preparation, changing corporate culture and rewards, and implementing appropriate strategies at the management level to create team cohesion and motivate team members. Working Virtually is for the executive leading changes in an enterprise that is preparing for virtual work or seeking to improve current performance. It offers tools to assess readiness, advice on creating appropriate reward policies, and strategies to adapt performance management processes to be more team-driven and technology leveraged. Working Virtually is written to and for the virtual leader who wants to establish high performing virtual teams. It provides an understanding of the roles and responsibilities of managing a virtual team, offering a wealth of advice on creating the conditions for collaboration, motivating team members, and identifying and defusing problems. Working Virtually is for the professional who works remotely from home, on the road, or in an office with remote colleagues. It is for anyone who wants to succeed in this new work environment by developing skills and networks to create a sustained and satisfying career path. With this new edition providing a 360 Degrees view of the roles and objectives of all stakeholders in the virtual workspace, this book uniquely provides readers with a rounded picture of the policies, processes, work habits, and commitments needed to achieve the shared goal of high performance remote teams.

A deeply personal call to action for women of color to find power from within and to join together in community, advocating for a new corporate environment where we all belong-and are accepted-on our own terms. Women of color comprise one of the fastest-growing segments in the corporate workforce, yet often we are underrepresented-among the first, few, or only ones in a department or company. For too long, corporate structures, social zeitgeist, and cultural conditioning have left us feeling exhausted and downtrodden, believing that in order to "fit in" and be successful, we must hide or change who we are. As a former senior partner at a large global services firm, Deepa Purushothaman experienced these feelings of isolation and burnout. She met with hundreds of other women of color across industries and cultural backgrounds, eager to hear about their unique and shared experiences. In doing so, she has come to understand our collective setbacks-and the path forward in achieving our goals. Business must evolve-and women of color have the potential to lead that transformation. We must begin by pushing back against toxic messaging-including the things we tell ourselves-while embracing the valuable cultural viewpoints and experiences that give us unique perspectives at work. By fully realizing our own strengths, we can build collective power and use it to confront microaggressions, outdated norms, and workplace misconceptions; create cultures where belonging is never conditional; and rework corporations to be genuinely inclusive to all. The First, the Few, the Only is a road map for us to make a profound impact within and outside our organizations while ensuring that our words are heard, our lived experiences are respected, and our contributions are finally valued.

Agile may be the best-kept management secret on the planet and if you want a quickstart introduction, then Agile NOW is essential reading. Agile is a different way of thinking that’s steeped in common sense and produces immediate results. That’s why there’s a quiet revolution going on.

Agile will help you design better products, get faster results, cut down costs, and keep improving as you go. With a simple system called The Golden Triangle - Prioritising, Time Boxing and Change Management - you can hit the ground running and get started immediately.

Agile NOW is slim, accessible and easy to dip into - yet covers all the essential theory and provides practical advice. Agile is for everyone - from one-person start-ups to multinationals – the promise of quicker, cheaper, better has universal appeal. Agile NOW shows you how to get going fast at minimal cost.

It is assumed that workplaces today are the most age diverse that they have ever been, and as a result many managers report difficulties when leading intergenerational teams. Such problems can stem from several myths about generational divides in the workplace, and it is only in recent academic research that these misconceptions have begun to be dispelled. Despite these emerging perspectives, falsehoods are still perpetuated regarding generational groups. Leadership in Multigenerational Organizations is an attempt to dispel some of these inaccuracies, whilst simultaneously suggesting ways in which different generations can be influenced to work cohesively and positively to accomplish organizational goals. To achieve this, academically supported leadership strategies are examined and applied to the age-related issues that can potentially arise in the workplace. Shifting the focus from assumed generational differences alone, this book considers evidence that calls into question whether intergenerational differences truly are evident in the workplace. Implementing the approaches in Leadership in Multigenerational Organizations increases the possibility of achieving age inclusive companies with improved workplace satisfaction, and ultimately stronger organizational cultures and overall performances. Urick provides specific strategies to influence members of multiple age groups, and the ideas provided here are applicable to almost all industries and organizational types, despite the continuously evolving generational landscape.

Much has been written about equal opportunity issues but little has been published about how organisations might provide more structure and support to ensure women's progress to the most senior business levels. This book looks at the career experiences of a group of women managers and consider what helps, and what still hinders their progress.

This book encompasses eleven chapters dealing with some of the most important issues in the field of human resource management through the exploration of four key themes: drawing the scenario, the pivots of human capital, measuring human capital, and good practices from abroad.

A cutting edge look at the experience of worker representation in the employment relations of workplace health and safety. Examining the extent to which existing arrangements deliver results, this book reflects on whether the effectiveness of worker representation is eroded or enhanced by current regulatory and organizational constructs.

The lifeblood of any business enterprise is its people. Dr. Jac Fitz-enz helps professionals quantify that statement by critically gauging their true human costs and their employees' productivity. The ROI of Human Capital does this this by providing you with detailed material on topics including corporate outsourcing, developments in behavioral science, and advances in trending and forecasting that have dramatically changed the way organizations measure the bottom line effect of employee performance. You'll learn how to evaluate people metrics at three critical levels: organizational (contributions to corporate goals), functional (impact on process improvement), and human resources management (value added by five basic HR department activities) to most effectively and accurately determine your profit and results. For years, The ROI of Human Capital has been the number-one resource for decision makers and human resources professionals assessing employee contributions and ROI. Now updated with the most relevant, up-to-the-minute metrics, the second edition continues to add value to teams by helping them perform the essential task of measuring the value of their people.

Much has been written about equal opportunity issues but little has been published about how organisations might provide more structure and support to ensure women's progress to the most senior business levels. This book looks at the career experiences of a group of women managers and consider what helps, and what still hinders their progress.

A generations expert and author of When Generations Collide and The M-Factor teams up with his seventeen-year-old son to introduce the next influential demographic group to join the workforce-Generation Z-in this essential study, the first on the subject. They were born between between 1995 and 2012. At 72.8 million strong, Gen Z is about to make its presence known in the workplace in a major way-and employers need to understand the differences that set them apart. They're radically different than the Millennials, and yet no one seems to be talking about them-until now. This generation has an entirely unique perspective on careers and how to succeed in the workforce. Based on the first national studies of Gen Z's workplace attitudes; interviews with hundreds of CEOs, celebrities, and thought leaders on generational issues; cutting-edge case studies; and insights from Gen Zers themselves, Gen Z @ Work offers the knowledge today's leaders need to get ahead of the next gaps in the workplace and how best to recruit, retain, motivate, and manage Gen Zers. Ahead of the curve, Gen Z @ Work is the first comprehensive, serious look at what the next generation of workers looks like, and what that means for the rest of us.

This volume contains articles and essays from internationally renowned authors and thinkers about the relationship among business, business ethics, religion, and spirituality. The authors included in this book represent multiple perspectives including Christian, Jewish, Hindu, philosophical, and others.
This volume will be of interest to both academics and business practitioners who promote a contemporary re-integration of business and religious values and for those concerned about the dangers inherent in this project.
In the end, this volume suggests that in a pluralistic and democratic society the only justification for going back home again to traditional religious texts is to help us all move forward together. If the real reason we're invoking religion in the public sphere is to strengthen our own religious communities and our own identities as members of particular religious communities, we are making a fundamental error in judgement. The goal of a legitimate religiously grounded business ethics can and must be the desire to critique, enhance, and strengthen the democratic values and institutions of society including business. These values include noncoercion, transparency, equal rights, pluralism, compromise, individual and communal responsibility, and many others.